Paper Info
Title
Characterisation and Estimation of the Key Rank Distribution in the Context of Side Channel Evaluations.
Abstract
Quantifying the side channel security of implementations has been a significant research question for several years in academia but also among real world side channel practitioners. As part of security evaluations, efficient key rank estimation algorithms were devised, which in contrast to analyses based on subkey recovery, give a holistic picture of the security level after a side channel attack. However, it has been observed that outcomes of rank estimations show a huge spread in precisely the range of key ranks where enumeration could lead to key recovery. These observations raise the question whether this is because of insufficient rank estimation procedures, or, if this is an inherent property of the key rank. Furthermore, if this was inherent, how could key rank outcomes be translated into practically meaningful figures, suitable to analysing the risk that real world side channel attacks pose? This paper is a direct response to these questions. We experimentally identify the key rank distribution and show that it is independent of different distinguishers and signal-to-noise ratios. Then we offer a theoretical explanation for the observed key rank distribution and determine how many samples thereof are required for a robust estimation of some key parameters. We discuss how this can be naturally integrated into real world side channel evaluation practices. We conclude our research by connecting non-parametric order statistics, in particular percentiles, in a practically meaningful way with business goals.
Year
DOI
Venue
2016
10.1007/978-3-662-53887-6_20
IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive
DocType
Volume
ISSN
Conference
2016
0302-9743
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
12
0.59
17
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Daniel P. Martin1434.20
Luke Mather21535.97
Elisabeth Oswald319717.67
Martijn Stam4165967.36